Player Diary: California's Max Homa (Part 1)

Player Diary: California's Max Homa (Part 1)

Hey all! My name is Max Homa and I am a senior golfer at the University of California, Berkeley. This year I am going to write for Golfweek.com to give you guys an inside look at what we do as student-athletes at tournaments and during our weeks off. Enjoy!

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The past two weeks here at Berkeley have been really exciting for the team. We have gotten to know all of our new freshmen and one even made the starting lineup for the first tournament.

Speaking of the first event, we went to Plymouth, Minn., for the Gopher Invitational hosted by the University of Minnesota. The course was brutally difficult. The fairways were narrow, there was a lot of trouble down most of the holes, the greens were confusing and the wind blew extremely hard at times. On the 36-hole day, the Golden Bears got off to a dream start.

We had the best two scores of the morning session (Brandon Hagy and myself) and we had picked up a sizeable lead. The second round was more of a struggle for the team, but everyone hung tough and held a 14-shot lead by the end of the day. Personally, I had played some solid golf and found myself with a four-shot lead.

The next day called for high winds so we knew it was going to be a grind. Getting out there in those conditions Monday morning, we knew we were going to have a tough day on our hands where it would be all about survival. Fortunately for us, the guys played great and we came out victorious! I happened to lose by one; however winning with the team is always the most satisfying part of college golf.

This week we have been working hard to catch up in school and keep our games sharp so we can bring our best games to the Ping/Golfweek Preview in Georgia, where there will be a lot of top-level teams. Can’t wait to get out there and tee it up!